'Most powerful, heavyweight' Najib backed ex-1MDB CEO, says DPP

1MDB TRIAL | “Most powerful person” and “heavyweight” Najib Abdul Razak supported the actions of 1MDB’s former CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, prosecutors contended.

Deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that the former prime minister was at the centre of Shahrol’s (above, left) actions and other members of the sovereign wealth fund’s management.

“At the centre of all these people was Najib, who was prime minister and finance minister as well chairperson of the (1MDB) board of advisers. They cannot run away from him.

“Shahrol, would he do all his actions if he did not have the backing of the most powerful person, a heavyweight?

“Would he (Shahrol) have dared to do that, do things without the (1MDB) board’s approval, sign agreements - would he dare without backing?

“Even though he (Shahrol) superseded the board, at the end of the day, the transactions went through, and Najib said, ‘Okay, they (transactions) were all cleared’,” Akram submitted during today’s RM2.27 billion 1MDB power abuse and money laundering trial against Najib.

The accused’s defence team contended that he had no knowledge or involvement in wrongdoing at 1MDB and that embezzlement at the fund owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc) was solely masterminded by fugitive businessperson Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) and other members of the fund’s management.

The former Pekan MP’s lawyers previously attacked the credibility of prosecution witnesses such as Shahrol, alleging they were in cahoots with Low who is still at large.

Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah is expected to hear counter-submissions from lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah tomorrow.

25 charges

Najib is on trial over four counts of abuse of power and 21 money laundering charges involving RM2.27 billion of funds from 1MDB.

For the four abuse of power charges, he allegedly committed the offences at AmIslamic Bank Bhd’s Jalan Raja Chulan branch in Bukit Ceylon, Kuala Lumpur, between Feb 24, 2011, and Dec 19, 2014.

On the 21 money laundering counts, the 71-year-old was accused of committing the offences at the same bank between March 22 and Aug 30, 2013.

The accused was first charged on Sept 20, 2018, and his criminal trial began on Aug 28, 2019.

The prosecution closed its case on May 30 this year, six years after the former prime minister was first charged.

The proceedings are now in the oral submissions stage, which involves no witness testimonies, only legal teams summing up whether the oral and documentary evidence implicates or exonerates Najib.

Fifty witnesses took the stand for the prosecution, among them 1MDB’s former CEOs Shahrol and Mohd Hazem Abd Rahman, Najib’s former special officer Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin, and former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

Prosecutors claimed that Najib received RM2.27 billion misappropriated from the troubled sovereign wealth fund between 2011 and 2014.

Besides highlighting Low and 1MDB management’s alleged culpability, the former finance minister’s legal team contended that the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had promised financial donations to the accused.

The accused is relying on four letters allegedly from Arab royalty, which stated that the donations were given, with no strings attached, in recognition of his contribution to the Islamic world.

Najib’s defence team also pointed out that while US$681 million flowed into his two AmBank accounts in 2013, around US$620 million was returned to the sender later that year.

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